Castles

Wales has loads of Castles, plenty of them ruins but some still well preserved like Beaumaris Castle on Anglesea.

http://www.castlewales.com/beaumar.html

 

Can I get technical -

The Welsh marches (the Medieval border between England & Wales) has the highest castle density ever. The bulk of Wales itself is not much different from the rest of Britain.

For example, Bedfordshire, a small, quiet rural county that only really saw 2 armies march through (William the Bastard in 1066 and a couple of little skirmishes in the War of the Roses - dates which are pre-castle and towards-the-end-of-castle-usefulness respectively) had 25 castles.

Why so many? Because they were fashionable residences if you could afford them (and if the king granted you a license).

However, Wales does have what are unarguably the finest castles in Britain, from both an aesthetic and defensive viewpoint - lovely concentric castles...
IIRC Harlech is almost perfectly symmetrical.

And they are arguably the finest castles anywhere...


FNG - I actually prefer English-type castles to Continental-type castles - they are castles without all the useless twiddly bits

 

I suppose when I say European I mean eastern and the crusader ones in the med which just look huge when seen on tv

Edward was a busy man in Wales and did build some nice stuff. Probably the peak of castle making before gunpowder made a difference.

I believe that you received a license to crenalate from the King which I assume is from some french word given that a lot of the noble words from 1066 onwards are french based.

FNG

 

Ohhh, yes, they are lovely...

It is actuallt debateable how much of a difference gunpowder made...
But no, I won't spout another of my old essays!

Indeed! Basically a device to stop the nobility from getting too strong compared to the king.

Crenallations (not how you spell it, but I can't remember how) comes from the technical terms for the 'sticky up bits' and the gaps between them - Merlons & Crenals (and I think that they are in that order, but I always got them confused... anybody know for sure?)

 

Thats the flipping Normans for you!


Anyway, following what Ricky said about the Welsh Marches I had a Google......

To call some of those places a castle is a little overstatement.....Stokesay Castle is a fortified house for example.

Also there a a few castles in South Wales that have not been mentioned, Newport, Usk, Caldicot, Penhow, Raglan, Abergavenny.

 

It is very interesting that while the Welsh Marches were very heavily fortified etc etc to deal with the pesky mauraudering Welsh, the Scottish Marches never were (not to the same extent) despite the Scots being, if anything, more of a pest than the Welsh.

 

Ah Ricky but the Scots were further away....less chance of them coming down and causing trouble, the Welsh were almost on the doorstep.

Are you saying the Welsh are a pesky lot? My ex husband is Welsh! :lol:

 

Tell that to the guys in Durham...

The Scots caused at least as much trouble in terms of raiding & invading, but nobody seemed to care as much. :-?

No comment...

 

But Durham is ooop North....does anything matter up there?
ONLY JOKING!!!!

No offence is meant to ANYONE!!! Including the Welsh!


It would be interesting to find out how the population was spread out, was it as London centred as it is now. I must go and Google!

 

Kronborg Castle in Denmark:

 

Ooooh I like it.....not disimilar to my own house.....in my dreams!!!

 

Very nice ...

The purist in me is struggling to point out that it is not, strictly speaking, a true castle, but I am ignoring him.

 

what is a castle?

Is a wooden cavelry fort or a foreign legion stone desert fort a castle? What differentiates these from wooden norman motte and bailey castles or Conwy?

FNG

 

Eeek...

Exactly what makes a castle a castle is a big & highly pedantic distinction.

It takes a long paragraph to do it justice.

Basically, a Castle is a fortified building that is also the permanent residence of the/a local bigwig (when he is in the area).

A standard house with fortifications around it does not count.

A simple fortified location does not count.

A community fortification (like a burh, or a walled town) does not count.

A country mansion built in a 'castle style' does not count.

(note, this is all highly technical distinctions, so don't worry too much. Heck, Deal Castle is not technically a castle... )

 

Kronborg castle is a castle, the king of Denmark have lived there once in awhile when he was in the area, now its a museum....

 

Furthermore, it was an important part of the tax claims for passing ship traffic, so it served a military purpose as well.

Christian

 

Nope - look at it. It is a small palace plonked inside a gun fort.

Very beautiful, and a good source of income, but not strictly/pedantically a castle.

IIRC is it true that the King of Denmark establish the biggest battery of cannon he could, and basically operated a 'pay me tax or I sink you' policy?

 

Bourscheid (Luxembourg) is really nice IMO.





It's a pity that I haven't seen it "in the flesh" since I was tiny.

 

Kronborg IS a Castle, it lay in the name of it, Kronborg slot, slot mean castle in danish

The danish king lived there, that make it into a castle, how bigger a local bigwing then the danish king do you want?

Yes, its have gun batteries, its build in the gun poweder age, so tall thin wall would not have been much of a help to defendt it, yes it is not build on a mountain like other European castles, simple because, there is no mountains in Denmark

And yes it was used to collect tax with, at the time is were build Denmark had the land on both side of Oresund, which is the small stripe of water between Denmark and Sweden, so Oresund was Danish water

Kronborg is a castle, end of discussion...

 

i just thought it might be interesting to note that during the middle ages...Singapore ,yes the whole island was a fortress and castle.someone teach me how to upload pics guys